t men among
them, and because he found Faustus, a Manichean bishop and the Goliath
of their forces, ignorant of many simple subjects, and unable to give
but vague and shallow responses to the questions that agitated his soul.
He afterward had a famous controversy with this Faustus, and wrote
against him thirty-three books. The results of Augustine's studies were
that he was able to refute their attacks on Holy Scripture which they
said had undergone serious changes, and to see the falsehood of their
main postulate that good proceeds from a good principle and evil from an
evil principle; and also to recognize the futility of their objection
that the Christians spoke of a human form in God. Against this sect his
principal writings are "On the Manners and Customs of the Catholic
Church and those of the Manicheans;" "The Utility of Faith," "The Two
Souls," and a book against Adimantes, the disciple of Manes, in which he
reconciles the contradictions alleged to exist between the Old and the
New Testament.

From the Manicheans Augustine turned to the Academicians, who were a
philosophical sect, and pretended that it was impossible for man to come
to the possession of truth. Augustine had many conferences on this
subject with his friends in his retreat at Cassiciacum: and the outcome
was two books "On Order," and one on "The Blessed Life." These works
discussed the matter thoroughly and left the philosophers no loophole of
escape.

A more dangerous error, though purely local in its immediate
surroundings, was the denial of the validity of Baptism when conferred
by heretics. This contention had occasioned a schism in the church of
Africa since the beginning of the fourth century. It received the name
of Donatism from Donatus, schismatic Bishop of Carthage, who had been
aided by another Donatus of Casae Nigrae. In St. Augustine's time it had
spread over the whole country. The Saint put forward the true idea of
the Church and showed that the minister of a sacrament does not
communicate to the recipient his own character of holiness or of guilt,
that it is Christ Himself who baptizes and absolves and gives efficacy
to sacramental signs. The cogency of his words, the clearness of his
explanations, and his grace of manner led many of the Donatists to
desire union with the Church, which he showed them, as Christ's Body, is
one and indivisible. His chief works in this controversy are a letter to
Maximinus, a Donatist bishop whom he